How to acquire a Microsoft office student discount?

It's August. You have passed your exams and you have been offered a university place. While you are packing your possessions ready to move into student accommodation, it is time to check whether your computer is equipped with a range of cheap software that is sophisticated enough for writing up your student assignments. This is where the Microsoft student educational discount scheme comes in useful.

Microsoft Office for students

Microsoft Office Home and Student is the version of the more expensive Microsoft Office Professional that comes with student deals. It is a package of different computer programs for collating, communicating, printing and projecting data and graphics. They can be used for saving, presenting and publishing materials. Microsoft Office Home and Student
Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook are a useful interactive suite of programs for students. The licence with the Home and Student for Vista version usually allows the software to be loaded onto three different PCs, so the whole family can benefit.
Microsoft organiser for notes
Students find the built-in OneNote facility very useful. OneNote facilitates organising notes and documents in one file which is multi-paged to allow saving of links and web pages, or for importing Word files. A new notebook can be created for each new assignment or essay, and all notes can be collated together there.

Microsoft Office Professional

For university level use, where professional standards are learned and applied, the full Microsoft Office suite may be needed. It may be worth finding out if your university does a student group deal to buy software cheaply. Microsoft Office for Macs
A version of this is also available for users of Mac computers. Cheap Mac student deals are widely advertised, and are more expensive. This is because the Mac has its own operating system whereas most personal computers come with the Windows operating system up and running.

Microsoft Office student licences

Authorised student suppliers are able to offer Microsoft Office 2010 Professional Plus at low prices. For instance, Software4students.co.uk charges under £40 for this instead of the full price of £429.99 (prices 01.08.11). To obtain a copy of this on licence, you must sign the EULA (End User Licence Agreement) and accept the software as a download from the supplier. Educational student licence sharing
In certain subjects, specific software are essential. When you arrive at university, you may find that they have an agreement similar to some schools' software agreements. Each student can download certain software onto their laptop or personal computer, but will probably still be paying a fee for this student offer. Microsoft education deals
UK student Microsoft Office software deals are overseen by Microsoft Ireland Operations Limited which remain the licensors.